


A Step Away from Regret

by VeraBAdler



Series: April 2019 challenges [26]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 20:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeraBAdler/pseuds/VeraBAdler
Summary: A surprise (to me, as well as to you) continuation ofyesterday's fic! Dean and Cas take a case, and realize that dreams don't always have to stay dreams.Prompt: Ugly sweaters





	A Step Away from Regret

“I'm just not sure how much help I can be to you on this, Agent Baker.”

The man's body language is friendly and open as they stand on his porch and ask him about their case. He's a little taller than Dean, broad and athletic – good-looking in an all-American kind of way. He's wearing khakis, deck shoes with no socks, and a sweater pulled over a white button-down shirt. Dean would characterize him as a Standard Suburban Dad type, straight out of Central Casting, except that the sweater is _screamingly_ ugly – every color in the rainbow splashed across it in eye-harming zig-zags.

Dean fights to drag his gaze off of the full-spectrum abomination. Blinking against the afterimage still seared on his retinas, he tries a different tack. “Well, Mr. Bennett...”

“Please, call me David.”

“Sure, David.” Dean would call this guy _Daddy_ if it would get them any closer to figuring out what's causing these disappearances. “Was there anyone else there with you that night? Anyone else we could talk to?”

“Well, I was alone in the backyard when I... When the, uh, thing ran past me. But my husband was home.” He raises his voice and turns towards the house. “Honey? Can you come out here for a sec?”

Another man joins them on the porch. He's just as good-looking as David, just as clean-cut, with a chiseled jaw and fluffy hair. He's sporting soft, faded jeans, and he's barefoot. The sweater that covers his gray v-neck is the monstrous brother to the one his spouse wears – too many colors, too many shapes, too much sweater _by far_ for the human mind to comprehend.

“Sweetie, this is Agent Baker and Agent Bruce.” Cas declines his head elegantly as his alias is announced. “Agents, this is Greg, my better half.”

Greg sticks out a hand, grants each of them a firm handshake in turn. “Wouldn't say I'm the _better_ half,” he says in a teasing tone. “David's pretty darn perfect.”

David flushes and pulls Greg into a sideways hug, planting a smooch on his cheek. “Hush, you,” he chuckles. “I apologize for Greg. He's a big sap.”

Greg rests his head against his husband's temple and grins. “What brings you fellas up our garden path this evening?”

Dean takes a few beats too long to respond, knocked off-kilter by a sudden upswelling of emotion. Fortunately, as usual, Cas is tuned to the Dean Winchester channel with his freaky angel intuition. He steps smoothly in to steer the conversation.

While “Agent Bruce” queries Mr. and Mr. Bennett about their experiences on the night in question, Dean attempts to calm his breathing, his swirling thoughts, his incipient fucking fainting spell.

Finding out that the witnesses are a couple is not the cause of his mental tailspin. Dean has seen some shocking shit in his day, and a happily married same-sex couple does not even twitch his dial for “weird.” He's never been one to judge how people live their lives. Yeah, they're clean-cut suburban types, but Dean would be a hypocrite if he bought into the idea that queer people have to look a certain way. And if he'd had any lingering confusion about whether a man could love another man and still be, well, _manly_ , Jesse and Cesar had cleared that up damn quick.

What's currently flipping Dean's lid is want, pure and simple. He sees these two men standing with their arms around each other, on the porch of their lovely home, in the middle of their lovely neighborhood, and he's almost sick with want. It's everything he and Cas talked about in their bed the other night, made real and tangible in front of them. 

He catches his boyfriend's eye when David ducks back into the house to grab his phone, and Cas gives him a look, and a soft, hopeful smile. _He feels it too_ , Dean realizes with certainty. _That could be us_.

And hell, maybe it _could_. Maybe they don't have to settle for stick-on stars and a late-night fantasy. Maybe they really can build their dream house together. Maybe Dean would even wear the ugly sweater, if it would make Cas keep smiling like that.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is adapted from a motivational quote I just Googled up here while I was flailing about for a title idea: "Every step towards your dream today is a step away from your regret tomorrow." ― Steve Maraboli
> 
> Rebloggable link for this fic on tumblr is [here](https://blessyourhondahurley.tumblr.com/post/184467017621/april-26-sweaters-verabadler-supernatural).


End file.
